August 18, 2006

Mobile loan sharks start to bite Nordic youth

This is wild. Reuters reports that loan sharks in Finland and other Nordic countries are targeting ads to young people asking them if they need cash to pay their next bill and to send them a text message. They promise to send the money in just a few minutes. And there's barely a mention of the annual lending rates of up to 1,000 percent involved.

"Dozens of companies have started to offer short-term loans for up to a few hundred euros each through text messages in Finland, and similar offers are cropping up in Sweden, Norway and the Czech Republic in central Europe.

The most active Finnish text message lenders give out several thousands of euros in loans each month, with most going to people in their 20s, the survey showed."